Five Decades of Ill Health Reversed
Sherry Orcutt from Plant City, FL

When I look back at my growing up years, I can recall that I have been sick all my life since I was seven years old, raised in a small little Mohawk Indian valley in Massachusetts.  A health food store was nowhere to be found (and still isn’t).  Let me take you on a five decade history of my health.

DECADE 1 - I had my tonsils and adenoids removed at 7.  I can remember having constant ear infections where the doctor would actually come to the house and lance my ears, I was constantly on one medication or another for the constant colds I had.  At 10 my appendix burst, six months after that I suffered from adhesions and had to have surgery again.  After starting my period at 12, I was absent from school at least two days a month as the pain was so severe.  The doctors would give me Darvon, tell me to go home and “suck it up.”  My Mom would suffer as she’d hear me screaming in pain each month.  She always told me she knew I wasn’t a baby, as she watched me recover and bounce back from all my operations and that I just didn’t complain much.

DECADE 2 – My periods were excruciating!  It felt like someone was stabbing the insides of me.  They put me on birth control and that did help a little but I was still relying on medications to numb the pain I was experiencing.  At 21 years old, I was at work one day and I passed out.  I was brought to the hospital and they found a grapefruit sized cyst in my uterus.  They removed the cyst along with my left ovary and diagnosed me with severe endometriosis and told me that I had a less than one percent chance of ever having children.   Soon after that, I had other problems.  I bled for nine months straight so they had me take high doses of hormones to create a Pseudo-Pregnancy.  I had all the symptoms of being pregnant, but with no baby growing in me.  The pain persisted and at 22 years old, I went to an Ob/Gyn specialist at Boston Women’s Hospital in Mass.  I told them I was tired of all this pain and that I wanted a hysterectomy.  They told me I was too young to make that decision because I was of child bearing age, but I was determined not to live in this pain the rest of my life.  They did so many tests and sent the results to my Ob/Gyn who agreed to do the hysterectomy.  He also knew I wanted children very badly – so when I woke up from the operation, he told me he had done a “roto-rooter” job and basically cleaned me out of as much endometriosis as he could, adhesions, scar tissue, a tipped uterus and he stretched my cervix.  In l975 I became pregnant with my first child.  Thank you, Lord, for giving that doctor wisdom.

DECADE 3 – I got pregnant again in 1985 and finally, my system seemed to be quieting down a little bit.

DECADE 4 – Hitting the Big 4-0 is depressing in itself, but to go for my annual check up and be told that I had Cervical Cancer was beyond devastating.  I really thought I was going to die.  So back under the knife for me.  My stomach looks like a roadmap of surgical skill (or NOT)!  They removed the cancer through surgery and felt they had gotten it all.  They did not offer me Chemo or Radiation but those choices were not as commonly offered then, as they are today.  After this I had new challenges to face; constant colds that turned into Bronchitis.  Every time someone around me had a cold, I’d fear for my health – I just knew I’d get it and I did!  The Bronchitis turned into Pneumonia four years in a row – each time taking the medications longer and longer to do its work.  The last bought of Pneumonia had me on meds for nine months of the year.  I was getting more and more sick and tired of being sick and tired.  I felt like a “flawed human being.”  What did I ever do to deserve this?  From age 45 to 49 my poor immune system had failed me – and all the medications I had to take to try to function left me with a pretty severe case of Candida.  In the meantime, I’m getting fatter and fatter, my blood pressure was skyrocketing, my cholesterol was climbing, I had acid reflux really bad regardless of what I ate, I had bladder incontinence, digestion problems, body odor, adrenal exhaustion, bleeding gums, bad breathe (I had a friend who used to loudly hint that that was the case as he handed me Red Hot Cinnamon Balls to cover up the offense), a large painful bunion, anemia, athletes foot and Hypo-Thyroidism.  Every morning I woke up to a few hours of allergy symptoms just to start my day right!

DECADE 5 – HALLELUJAH!!!  I found the answer for me and my family!  It’s interesting to me that I considered myself to be healthy – I thought I fed my family a healthy diet and I didn’t have a DISEASE.  These things were supposed to happen as we got older, right?  But God did not get my attention with all my ailments; He got my attention when my husband was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2001.  This diagnosis was threatening my life as I knew it and I did not want to loose my husband to a wheelchair, a disease or to drugs, loss of quality of life and eventually death.  (A pain medication for an ear infection had landed him in the hospital three years prior to this and he could not eat or drink for three weeks).  Medication was not an option for us!  After many hours of prayer and the Lord sending me an Earth Angel (read Dave’s testimony) to pinpoint me in the direction of the Hallelujah Lifestyle, my heart was inclined to believe that this Lifestyle was our answer.  It just made sense! We jumped in with both feet, went on the diet 100% and have not looked back – except to give our testimony and try to help as many other people as we can to realize that We Do Not Have To Live Our Lives In a Downhill Spiral of Disease and Illness! 

Today, I know that Tonsillitis is caused by a poor diet that aggravates a sporadic infection; too many starches, sugars and often an allergy to pasteurized dairy foods and wheat, not enough green vegetables and other fiber foods, poor digestion and non-assimilation of nutrients.
 
Endometriosis is caused by excess levels of estrogen (probably from the high levels of birth control hormones they had me on to stop its growth) and from deficient progesterone, candida, magnesium deficiency, could be X-ray consequences, a high fat diet with too much caffeine (that seemingly innocent coffee and diet cokes).

Pneumonia is caused by a lowered immune system due to poor nutrition, gum disease, preceding respiratory infections from a virus or bacteria, clogged lymph nodes, chemical sensitivity especially to pesticides and herbicides, body stress and fatigue. 

I had all the classic symptoms mentioned above and my poor immune system did not have a fighting chance.  I had exhausted it with one condition after another with no refueling intention on my part.

In looking back at my diet the first four decades of my life I can honestly say it was a very poor diet.  As a kid, I remember living on grilled cheese sandwiches, mac and cheese, hotdogs, bologna, ham, bacon soup, and P&J sandwiches.  As a young adult, I learned to cook great meals (meat, potato, vegetable – mostly cooked).   I used to starve myself for fear of gaining more weight.  I drank diet cokes – pizza was cheap, gum was always in my mouth (bad breathe fear) and I tried every diet known to mankind – every time a new one came out – I WAS ON IT!  Of course, none of them worked for me – if I managed to loose a little, I always gained the loss back and more.

TODAY – THE YEAR 2008 - Does any of this sound like YOU?  Are you trapped in a vicious cycle of ill health and disease?  Let me just state, that in one year on the Hallelujah Diet & Lifestyle, all above mentioned problems went away along with some unsightly wrinkles, moles and 280 sticks of butter (70 lbs) have melted from this body.  I now live my life to help others.  I’m like the little calf let out of the stall – leaping with joy at the success we have seen.  When you see results in your own body, your own family – you cannot help but want to spread the good news.  I give all the glory to my Lord, Jesus Christ, for directing me on this path of renewed health.  I thank Rev. George Malkmus for his vision on how to reestablish balance in our “Temples.” Our Back to Eden Health Ministry is now 6 ½ years old and we have helped over 1,000 people to come to the realization that “Health Is a Choice.”  We will reap what we sow in life and that goes for our immune systems as well.  Sickness seems to evade us.  Now, my husband and I have a ministry we can share together, where we can help to educate, empower and encourage others to know that they have choices in life and that “it’s all about the condition of your immune system!  The words we listen to today, and the actions we take today will largely determine our health outcome tomorrow.